CES Las Vegas

CES Las Vegas

Everyone who is anyone in the world of business knows that January is that time of year to head out to CES Las Vegas to attend the “Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It is home to many international exhibitors and the place where innovations in audio, drones, gaming, augmented and virtual reality, vehicle technology, video, wireless devices, wireless services, digital imaging/photography or anything “i” come to market.

Las Vegas sees more than a hundred thousand CES attendees who go to see the biggest and thinnest new TVs, the fastest and lightest new laptops, the headphones and the phone cases and the drones and the refrigerators. All of it more powerful than last year’s model, more connected, and more inclined to becoming deeply embraced into everyday life. It seems that consumers and their electronics are tied together like never before.

The general public is not invited to the conference as it is a trade-only show, meaning that if you don’t have any business interest in the consumer technology industry, it’s unlikely that you’d be allowed to register for the show. If you do however, you can register under one of three names: Attendee, Media, Delegation Leader or Exhibitor.
In 2018 there are challenges to be faced, nonetheless. The tech-buying public is beginning to ask important, overdue questions. What do gadgets do to our attention spans and our brains? People want a better understanding of the world we live in. Have we been using tech all this time, or letting tech use us? What about privacy issues, such as what happens to all the data these smart devices and gadgets store? 2017 saw personal data exposed, whether by Equifax or Yahoo or any of the dozens of other hacks. Alexa and Google Assistant entered millions of homes, testing the limits of how much people are willing to be listened to, and seen, in the name of awesome new features. Virtual and augmented reality became just real enough to display their potential—and a realization that the scary downside of technology could be that it tricks your brain into believing something fake is real.

Hopefully this year at CES, we saw new ideas about privacy, and how companies can help us protect our data and ourselves. Maybe even ways to get our eyes and brains away from our smartphones, keeping us just as connected, but not as distracted or isolated.

Yes, this year of 2018, we are looking for the gadgets that make real things better for people.
Here’s to hoping it started in Vegas!